


in memoriam

by IrisParry



Series: in memoriam [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Fenris is a good boy, M/M, Wakes & Funerals, mention of past Hela/Valkyrie, ragnarok spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 00:01:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12715572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisParry/pseuds/IrisParry
Summary: Loki is the talk of the town when he returns to Asgard for the funeral, dogged by memories, stormclouds and those damned ravens. And by the one thing the gossips never knew to whisper about.





	in memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to for_autumn_i_am and raisedbycats for looking this over.

Loki had wanted it to be a bright day, sunshine blazing in a crisp, clear autumn sky. For the leaves to seem to glow in the trees in a hundred shades of yellow and orange, for laughing families to frolic through them where their drifts decorated the ground. Everyone in adorable home-knitted hats and scarves, shops lit up with twee fairy lights, squirrels scampering to and from their nests. Dens. Whatever it was the nasty little creatures made in the idyllic English countryside. 

He wanted the place to be perfect. Golden. Back in Asgard for the first time in nine years, eight months, two weeks, Loki wanted to  _ hate _ . 

Instead, pathetic fallacy hung sullen and brooding in the sky above as he kept a brisk pace down the high street, grey clouds promising a miserable day ahead. He’d missed the school run and the main thoroughfare was dotted with older shoppers, stopping to exchange tiresome tales and block the pavement, scowling as he darted into the gutter to go around them rather than risking engagement. And then, the whispers, of course. 

_ Isn’t that -  _

_ Well I never -  _

_ He’s got some brass neck -  _

_ Did you hear -  _

Almost ten years, Loki thought, and he was still the most interesting thing to happen to the place. He turned off down the cut between the grocer’s and the newsagent, a grim smile on his face. The most interesting thing in Asgard. Truly, damning with faint praise. They had likely not expected him as he was, though, the same fine suit and impeccable grooming. Undoubtedly unbroken. Unmoved as ever by their inconsequential opinions. And, gone before the town could pick its jaw off the floor. He patted his jacket, plane ticket stashed in the inner pocket. Today, tomorrow, then escape mid-morning on Sunday.

Loki made a left, and then another, hands in his pockets, braced for the first needles of cold rain. A narrow path cutting through the middle of a terraced row was barely wide enough to walk comfortably, and the concrete ground was cracked and strewn with weeds. The alley opened up on a dead-end street. Two scruffy black birds sat on the sagging telephone wires that criss-crossed the sky, cawing in warning or welcome as he passed beneath them. He wondered if they remembered him too.

The bar was still there, because of course it was. There would always be a need for it in a place as shining and stagnant as Asgard. There was an old-fashioned iron lamp hanging instead of a sign declaring a name, and the windows were frosted aside from the very top panes, to well above head height. The rainbow stripes of the sticker in the corner of the window had faded in the sun since he last paid a visit, and the corners were peeling. There was something comforting yet profoundly depressing about the sight of the place.

It was open even at just gone ten o’clock and Loki passed through two sets of doors into the homely gloom. A chalkboard on the wall optimistically offered breakfast sandwiches alongside crudely-named and horribly alcoholic cocktails, and cheerful black and orange bunting in the shape of pumpkins and bats still hung around the tops of the booths. 

Loki had thought to find one blessed place not crowded with watchful eyes and wretched gossiping tongues, but a lone woman sat at the bar, a thick braid falling over her broad, hunched shoulders, heavy boots kicking on the rung of her stool. She did not turn as Loki’s heels echoed across the floor, the bare boards creaking softly, nor when he took the adjacent seat.

He couldn’t really help himself. “Pretty early in the morning, isn’t it?” he said. 

She did turn at that, long enough to roll her eyes. “The perfect time to mind your own business.” Her face was tattooed with simple yet striking lines. It was also vaguely familiar. 

“Tell that to the rest of this town,” he said, scanning the dusty back row of bottles. There was no sign of bar staff. It was entirely plausible that they were sitting next to him, determinedly serving themselves.

She snorted, took another belt from her glass. “Piss off, Odinson. You always loved a bit of attention.” 

Loki allowed a small smile. “You know who I am, then.” 

The barman had emerged from the back, looking barely old enough to sample his own wares and eyeing Loki with suspicion. Loki ordered two of whatever the lady was having, and the kid held his twenty under the little counterfeit detection light for a mildly offensive amount of time. 

The woman took one of the glasses, not waiting for permission. “Everyone knows who you are,” she said. “You made sure of that.”

Loki shrugged. The whiskey she’d chosen felt like it was eating away at the roof of his mouth.

She turned to him, rested her elbow on the bar and her cheek on her fist. “How was jail?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, wondering if she did. He swilled the rotgut gently in his glass. “Big, boring building filled with bitterness and press-ups.”

The woman reached out and squeezed his shoulder, and only great force of will kept the grimace from Loki’s face. She smiled sweetly. “And you chose door number one, eh?”

Loki stiffened at that, shrugged her off, and she laughed, not entirely unkindly. Loki had, in fact, put on weight in prison, all muscle, because though the food was atrocious there was precious little to do but train after he’d exhausted the pitiful library. Not that it was any of her business, of course. It had always been to his advantage to allow people to underestimate him.

They drank in silence for a little while. Eventually the bar-boy tore his eyes from his phone and slouched over to the old jukebox. It was still in the exact same place on the wall, and judging by the Siouxsie track that started up it still had the exact same records.   

“I was sorry to hear about your father,” the woman said, looking at Loki through the bottom of her glass. He supposed it was the best way to see Asgard. “He was a good man.”

“So I keep hearing.” 

“Your sister coming for the funeral?” 

There it was. He must have seen her face around the house, once or twice. Likely Hela hadn’t so much broken her heart as ground it beneath her heel and set it alight, washed down the cold ashes with a couple of bottles of cheap red.

He raised an eyebrow, smiled into his glass. “I suspect she may put in an appearance.” 

Loki visited the gents before he headed out to the church. The now-ubiquitous Dyson Airblade was new but, when he toed open the door of the far stall, the cracked tile on the wall still remained. It was at about shoulder height: Loki’s shoulder, to be precise. They had been reckless that evening, goading one another on, drunk on the dreadful cocktails and adolescent infatuation. Taking up all manner of bad habits that it would take too long to break. 

Loki had to wear scarves and turn up his collars for a week afterwards. He smiled at his reflection as he washed his hands, thinking what the gossips would give for  _ that _ story. 

 

*

 

There was barely a foot of shelter against the wall of the church, not that it really mattered. The old drainpipe next to Loki rattled in its brackets, but the rain was more like a fine mist, unavoidable, drifting onto him wherever he stood. It was more the principle of the thing, really. Lurking around the corner and hunching his shoulders against the weather was far more fitting to the occasion than standing out in front next to the twee little wishing well, and this way he didn’t have to make sad faces and tell people he was glad they’d come. 

Loki took a slow drag on the cigarette. The nicotine was a bit of a rush after so long without. He’d never been much of a smoker, but sometimes after a few drinks it seemed the thing to do. The first time he’d tried it had been in this churchyard, at about fifteen - on his own, none of that  _ peer pressure _ nonsense, just the battered pack of Marlboros he’d taken from Odin’s bottom drawer, the box of cook’s matches, and the spirit of scientific inquiry. 

His own pack were slim menthols. Standing in the rain smoking his father’s brand outside his father’s funeral would really have been too much. Had his father died when he was twenty, as he’d often wished at the time, it would probably have been a different matter. 

The churchyard was wilder round the side of building, long grass bent with the weight of the dewy rain, dotted with the last wilting cornflowers and poppies. Two birds squatted atop a lopsided gravestone, their dark feathers ruffled up against the wind, and one of them blinked a glossy black eye at Loki, twisted its head to stare at him with the other. At least they didn’t bother trying to hide it.

Loki twitched back a cuff and checked his watch. Eleven twenty. He was surely here by now. Obviously too busy shaking hands and looking solemn to ponder the whereabouts of Odin’s …  _ other _ son. He had a part to play, after all, and he did it so well. A natural. That’s what they’d whispered, at mother’s funeral, as if it was all a test for the golden boy to pass.

Loki pushed off the wall and bent down, cigarette in one hand, came up with a couple of pebbles in the other and pitched them in the birds’ direction. The stones clanged off the wrought iron fence, and the ravens took off with indignant croaks. 

Loki had just stubbed out the cigarette when he came loping around the corner, casting about as if he’d lost something. He’d cut his hair. He looked as ill at ease with it as he did in the suit: as he walked he reached up in that familiar gesture, as if to brush strands back from his face, ended up passing his hand all the way back over his shorn head like he’d meant to do it the whole time. 

Something twisted in Loki’s gut. Thor had always been a dreamer, had never settled, never developed a real taste for the finer things in life, like the suit he’d clambered into and the shoes he dragged through the puddles. And yet here he was, the heir to the empire, and looking every inch the part. Even the awkwardness worked for him, if you asked the financial pages, made him seem  _ down to earth  _  brought a  _ freshness _ to the company’s image. 

Loki scowled. Thor smiled. He leaned back against the wall, their shoulders almost touching.

“I wasn’t sure you would come.”

“Nor was I.” Loki pulled the pack of menthols out of his jacket pocket, fingers brushing the plane ticket. Today, tomorrow, away bright and early on Sunday.

“I’m glad you did.” Loki snorted, lit another cigarette. Thor was still smiling. “You look good.”

“Yes, well.” Loki casually braced a foot up against the wall, shifted his hips. The smoke caught his throat and he coughed into his fist.

“That’s a bad habit.”

Loki raised an eyebrow and proffered the pack. It would not be Thor’s first smoke - that had also been one of Loki’s, in a booth in the nameless bar, back before the smoking ban had radically altered the place’s ambience. Back before they tired of all their terrible habits.

Thor looked at him with less trepidation and less trust than he had then, but he took a cigarette anyway. It looked tiny in his fingers. Loki thumbed the lighter on and Thor leaned close, cupped his warm hands around Loki’s, around the flame til the cigarette caught. Though the rain itself was still little more than drizzle, heavy drops splashed down onto Thor’s shoulders, the water collecting on the eaves high above them. He brushed off his jacket as he stepped back into the sliver of shelter, shoulder jostling Loki’s.

“Where’s Jane?” Loki asked politely.

Thor blew out a plume of smoke, thumped his chest even though he hadn’t really inhaled properly. Ever dramatic. “We’re getting a divorce.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” 

Loki frowned, craned to look past Thor and the rattling drainpipe. A few metres away, people were still ambling into the church. Out of earshot. “What?”

“I sent you a message about it. You didn’t reply.”

Loki blinked, took another drag. “Well, it wouldn’t have done you any good if I had. I never could say the right things about all that. You know, saying them just to say them.” 

“You did just now,” Thor said placidly. 

“What?” Loki could have sworn there was a smile playing at Thor’s mouth.

“You said you were sorry.” 

“Well maybe I am, then,” Loki snapped. “Maybe it’s as simple as that.”

“Alright.” It was definitely a smile. What cause did he have for smiling, when it was his failed bloody marriage they were discussing? “Thank you.”

Loki raked his fingers back through his hair. The damp was getting to it. “I’m surprised it took her this long to lose patience with you. There. Does that make you feel better?”

Thor narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Loki followed his gaze to the ungainly cedar that overhung the fence: the ravens huddled on a low branch, eyeing Loki distrustfully and clicking their beaks to one another. 

“You know, it’s weird,” Thor said, eventually. “But it kind of does?”

The purr of an engine grew louder as they stood and smoked, until, on the other side of the fence, a long black car with tinted windows slid by. Thor and Loki exchanged glances. 

“Fuck,” they said in unison, dropping their cigarettes and grinding them out with their heels.

Most of the mourners were inside the church by then, but there was still a small crowd for Hela as her driver opened the rear door of the limousine. He was glancing around sternly and kept touching his earpiece. A large silver-haired dog bounded out first, unleashed but with a thick studded collar, and sat at attention on the pavement. 

“I am fairly certain that dogs are not allowed in the church,” Thor said, dragging his hand back over his hair again. 

Loki caught him up at the wishing well. He searched his pockets for change. “I am certain that Hela is certain too.” 

After a pause to heighten the anticipation, Hela slithered out and patted the dog’s sleek head. Her dress was a deep green velvet that was almost black, and almost appropriately modest until you saw the slit to the thigh and the ripped fishnets beneath. Giant sunglasses like the eyes of a terrible insect covered half her face and her hair was pinned up elaborately yet carelessly, dark strands trailing in the breeze like cobwebs. 

She was magnificent, and as she strode up the path to the church, Fenris at her heels, Loki could not hold back his laughter. The people wanted drama, and one Odinson or another would always provide. 

Thor glared at him. Hela and Fenris sailed by without acknowledging either of them. Loki flicked a coin into the well, and followed his beloved family into the church.

 

*

 

Hela demanded to act as pallbearer. She was undoubtedly strong enough, that was not in question, but it had all been arranged already and her stepping in would have meant someone else giving way. There was only so much coffin to go around, after all. She and Thor hissed at one another about it in the vestibule for quite some time, the priest literally wringing his hands in the background. Loki had obtained a handful of dog biscuits from Hela’s driver and set about currying favour with Fenris, wishing he had a snack of some sort himself to accompany the entertainment. 

He had been about to offer Hela his own place, just to see the looks on their faces, when the priest suggested she might like to stay with her dog at the front to ensure his good behaviour. Hela looked daggers at him for his insinuation about her baby, but she had both annoyed Thor and achieved concession on Fenris’s presence, so she nodded magnanimously and swept into the hall, her boots clunking down the central aisle. 

Fenris snapped the final biscuit out of the air when Loki tossed it to him.

“Good dog,” Loki said, bestowing a farewell scratch behind the ears. “You are my favourite relation, do you know that?” Fenris barked happily at him, turning the congregation’s heads before running off to his mistress. Loki gave them a winning smile, and then Thor’s hand was on his shoulder, heavy and portentous.

“Come on,” Thor said, his voice tight. “It’s nearly time.” 

Loki, Thor and the rest of the pallbearers managed to convey Odin from the hearse to the front of the church without spilling the old bastard out into the pews. Hela awaited them in the front row, not budging an inch as they squeezed past her to take their places. Fenris sat in the aisle, close to Hela. 

Thor squeezed Loki’s knee as they sat, just for a second, in what was likely intended to be a gesture of support and solidarity, and Loki felt his face heat. He had no need of such coddling. 

Loki kept his eyes on Hela but she was quite a disappointment, quiet and stony-faced - until the priest finished extolling Odin’s virtues and was about to invite them to pray for his soul. Then, Hela cleared her throat, politely but pointedly. 

Thor frowned. Loki smiled. Fenris’ tail thumped on the floor. 

Hela took off her sunglasses, and beneath them her coal-black eyeshadow extended almost as far. “I would like to say a few words,” she announced.  

“Of - of course, Ms Odinson,” the priest stammered, glancing at Thor, then at Fenris, then at the large man with the earpiece who stood at the back of the hall. 

She made her way up to the pulpit, followed by frantic whispers, and the priest shrank back to make way for her. When she turned to face her audience, Hela was smiling serenely. That usually boded ill for someone.

 

*

 

It would not be accurate to say that Loki slept late the day after the funeral, because he was quite awake and simply choosing to stay in bed. He had breakfast brought up, then hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign. 

Thor was meeting with lawyers, and he had declined to accompany him. It wasn’t as if Odin’s last will and testament would contain anything to concern Loki. Hela was probably having a three course brunch on a plane, with mimosas, while  _ her _ lawyers did a lot of damage control. Loki hoped Fenris was having a nice day at least.

Loki was feeling somewhat delicate, having spent the preceding evening in the bar that shall not be named relating the day’s debacle to the woman with the drain-cleaner whiskey. Val apparently lived above the bar, in one of the least healthy arrangements Loki had heard of since he and Hela were under Odin’s roof. She had listened with hearty, booming laughter, occasional horror, and, once or twice, a faraway, wistful look that made him briefly consider cutting her off. It was baffling, really, to still long so desperately for someone who hurt you so badly.

The rain drummed steadily at the window. Loki’s phone sat charging on the desk, dark and silent. He tongued the split in his bottom lip, not enough to start it bleeding again, just enough to know it was there. He had acquitted himself well, after Hela’s eulogy had gotten Odin’s old chums and Hela’s security quite overcome with emotion. He’d had considerably more practice than opponents tended to assume. Fenris, mercifully, was indeed a good dog and confined himself to howling from the sidelines rather than joining the fray directly. He could have bested them all.

Loki had not been entirely sure who had won, when Val asked, especially as several participants in the brawl were only on the side of stopping the madness. He supposed that side won, really, with Thor as their captain and Loki a late and grudging substitution. 

Their celebration had been muted, the two of them, in the gathering dark on the steps outside the church. The last of the cars was pulling away, the rain coming on in earnest by then. Val gripped his shoulder again when he told her that part, gentler this time. She was undoubtedly the worse for drink, imbuing the tale with all manner of fanciful emotions. 

Thor had sat down heavily, heedless of his suit trousers, and Loki had joined him, heedless of his dignity. There was precious little to say, and for once neither of them said it. Perhaps, Loki thought, they had both been wondering what mother would have done, were she there. What she would have made of them all. The thought was too terrible to speak aloud, to bring into the world.

Odin had never been the same, or so Loki had heard, after she was gone. Loki attended her funeral in handcuffs, flanked by bored prison officers. He had almost decided it would be worth the extra couple of months to headbutt the one who was chewing gum, when Thor approached, throwing both arms around him like he didn’t care that Loki could not reciprocate.

Thor had not offered a parting embrace, or any other kind, at the church. He said he wanted to take a walk and bid Loki good night, striding off into the rain melodramatically, leaving Loki to watch until he vanished into the distance. The rain soaked Loki’s shirt and plastered his hair to his face, and the mocking calls of the ravens echoed from the trees. 

Loki threw back the covers, went to the bathroom to wash his face and fill a glass of water. His headache had more or less passed but his heart stuttered and his throat felt tight, and he avoided his own eyes in the mirror. He suspected that this particular hangover had been coming to him for quite some time.

He was pacing the bedroom, still in vest and pyjama bottoms, when the knock at the door came. He stopped, frozen, until it came again: softer, as if the second try was shameful somehow.

It was Thor, of course, and he looked almost a mess, jeans and trainers showing below the hem of his long red coat. Though the swelling around his eye had gone down, the lucky blow from Hela’s driver still darkened the right side of his face like a stormcloud. It lent him a dangerous look, like the flash and the fire were but a matter of time. 

“The sign says  _ do not disturb _ ,” Loki told him, sounding childish even to his own ears, but he found he was already opening the door wider, and Thor was already walking in like he owned the place.

Thor perched on the edge of the desk, his brow creasing when he looked at Loki. “Are you alright?”

“Well, I’m grieving, aren’t I?” Loki sneered, folding his arms, but Thor just smiled weakly at him, nodded his head as if they’d just had the most profound exchange. 

Loki already regretted opening the door. Not ten seconds after Thor’s arrival and they were already experiencing their first awkward silence. Loki had no intention of breaking it, though the infernal ravens did their best, croaking and rasping in the trees in the hotel car park. If Thor wanted an emotional outpouring, he would have to provide it himself. Preferably elsewhere.

Thor went to the window, scanning the view for the birds. “Father used to feed them,” he said quietly. “In the park, near the bandstand. Do you remember?” 

“Yes,” Loki said shortly, and Thor turned with that look on his face, hopeful and piteous all at once, excruciating. Loki did remember. Seeds and nuts and sometimes bacon bits, in brown paper bags. Odin’s creaking laughter lost in the birds’ calls. The bacon was probably bad for them. Odin was a fool.

Thor faltered, rubbing his stupid short hair and looking around the room awkwardly. His eye looked terrible. It must have been painful. Loki wanted to touch, to prod his fingertips where the skin was blue and tender. His fists clenched against his ribs.

“You didn’t get through them all, then?” Thor said, gesturing toward the pack of cigarettes on the desk, tossed with the other contents of Loki’s pockets. He was a ridiculous creature. Loki couldn’t stand it.

“Is that why you’re here, then?” Loki said coldly. “To bum a smoke?"

“Of course not,” Thor said, low and serious, as if he had not been the one making inane small talk a second ago. 

“Alright,” Loki continued, laughing mirthlessly. “You want to pick up another bad habit from way back when?” He uncrossed his arms and let them hang by his sides, felt every rise and fall of his chest with his breath. They were both ridiculous creatures. Loki should never have come back.

Thor watched him, and it wasn’t the same as it used to be. Thor had once been so eager and bright-eyed, had woken Loki in the night, crowded him into the bathroom at the bar barely caring who might have seen them go. When they were older Thor had flown across the Atlantic, half-believing Loki would turn him away. 

Loki would have fought Thor if he’d wanted it, let his body sing with the pain; let Thor light himself a damned cigarette and grind it out on his chest. He wanted to feel anything but the hollowness and the old pain.

Loki went to him and Thor let him, let Loki pick up his big hand and run his thumb over the scraped knuckles. He winced but he didn’t yank his hand away. 

“Is that it, then?” Loki said, nothing like a tremble in his voice. “Didn’t get it all out of your system yesterday, did you?”

“Loki, please,” Thor said, gently,  _ gently _ , as if Loki were in need of soft words, and he lifted their joined hands til his bloodied knuckles brushed Loki’s face. Loki recoiled, tried to pull away, but Thor caught his wrist and pulled back and that was that. 

It was nothing like Loki wanted, nothing at all, taking Thor to his hotel bed and pushing him down. Thor kept him so close they could barely undress, and Loki felt he was suffocating, smothered with maddeningly slow kisses and with hands clutching at his face. He was starving for more, and then the long, long moments of skin against skin were a feast that almost overwhelmed him. Thor’s body was another wretched memory from this wretched town, one he had run from like all the rest, yet here he was revelling in it again. His eyes prickled and burned and he squeezed them closed tight. 

“I missed you,” Thor told him, breathed into his ear while he touched him, that and so many other things he could not mean. “I needed you.”

“I know,” Loki said, half-choking on the words. Outside, thunder crashed and the rain battered the windowpanes, as if to mark a momentous occasion, as if this all meant something. It was unbearable, and he hid his burning face against Thor’s shoulder. They lay on their sides, Thor’s hand working them both, Loki’s clutching at him all over: his too-short hair, his arms, his great thighs, thicker even than Loki remembered. 

Loki had wanted to be taken, pinned beneath Thor’s weight, the breath knocked out of him with every thrust. Thor had never understood, how grasping and selfish Loki’s love was, how demanding. This was all too slow and too close, and it had him wracked with pleasure like the worst torture, shaking and sweating and crying out, feeling like there would be no end to it. 

He lay awake afterwards, Thor’s arm slung across his chest, thigh across his thigh. Lightning flashed, and there was something terribly embarrassing about it but still Loki did not stir himself.  

Thor awoke a little later and Loki must have been half-asleep because the dreamy pace they’d set felt just about right by then, sumptuous and indulgent. It had grown dark, and Thor pulled the covers over them both, and somehow the bed felt far away from the storm and from Asgard. 

 

*

 

The sky had cleared in the morning and pale sunlight crept around the edges of the curtains, making Thor’s hair and skin look golden and perfect as he dressed to leave. Loki watched him, propped up against a pillow.

“I called Hela,” Loki said, feeling small and petulant. “I told her about the funeral.” His eyes were sore, and he ached all over. He reeked of Thor. He hated it.

“I figured you had.” Thor said, sitting on the edge of the bed to put on his socks and shoes. He did not seem to be angry.

“Did she not deserve to know?” Loki pressed. “He was her father too.”

Thor paused with his shoe untied, stared into the middle distance. “Yes,” he sighed. “Yes, I think she did. And the more I think on it, the more it seems the things she said needed saying.”

“They’re going to be pretty damaging,” Loki said, drawing his knees up and the covers with them, tugging the duvet closer around himself. “To his reputation. The precious family name.”

“To the business,” Thor said sharply, starting on his laces again. “And there are a lot of people who depend on that. I’m meeting Heimdall and the rest of the board today. There’s a lot to do. A lot of decisions to make.” 

“Of course.” Of course. The heir had better places to be. Important things to do. Loki thought about the plane ticket, damp but whole in his jacket pocket. He felt like a fool.

Thor rubbed a hand over his face, wincing where his eye was still tender. Loki had kissed it, last night, at some point, his lips soft and tentative. Reverent. Soothing. Loki wondered if it was too early for a drink. Val would know.

“Shit,” Thor said. “That’s why I came here.” He turned to Loki, looking weary beyond the effects of their exertions. “They’re your decisions too. If you want them.”

“What do you mean?” Loki hugged his knees tighter.

“He left it to you. To us, I mean.” There was no mirth in his eyes, not a trace. Not a trace. “Both of us.” Thor just kept talking. He leaned in and spoke slowly, as if Loki were an imbecile. “It was in the will.” 

“Thor.” Loki swallowed, keeping his voice steady. “I am a convicted criminal who was no longer welcome for Christmas dinner.” 

“It’s a family business. You’re family.”

“ _ Adopted _ family.” 

“Yes. He  _ chose _ you.” 

_ You didn’t _ , Loki thought, his stomach churning.  _ You didn’t, he inflicted me upon you. _ The words were ashes in his mouth, burning up unsaid.

Thor got up and rolled his shoulders, eyes darting around the room. “You’ll need to talk to the lawyers about getting your share, then. Dividends, that sort of thing.” Loki stared at him. “I can send you accounts so you know you’re getting everything you’re entitled to.” 

Loki stood with a sudden burst of nervous energy, dragging the sheet with him, wrapping it about his waist. His back to Thor, he lit a cigarette with shaking hands.  

“Loki?”

Loki bit his lip, hard. He would let him go, he realised. Thor would really let him go and send him a cheque every month like maintenance. He took a long drag on the cigarette, and the filter came away bloody.

“What time? The meeting.”

“Two.”

Loki turned and Thor stepped toward him, tilted his chin with one hand, rubbed his thumb over his lip with the other. His eyes were soft, and sad. 

“When is your flight?” Thor asked.

Loki closed his eyes. “Three hours ago.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This is not! What I was supposed! To be writing! This weekend! But then I saw that delightful sunshine psychedelic movie that made me so happy and thought hey, I have to write 5 maudlin k about that IMMEDIATELY. Of course. 
> 
> I’m on tumblr with the same username!


End file.
